1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method of marking a product to identify its origin or contents based on information such as, for example, date of manufacture, plant of origin, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Major problems experienced in many areas of the world and in connection with many different products is that of product counterfeiting, unauthorized distribution and sale of a product (e.g. grey market trading, parallel trading, product diversion), as well as false liability based on product substitution.
Throughout the world, manufacturers provide the products they sell with a visually distinctive appearance, packaging or labels so that customers can distinguish their products from those of others. As a result, their customers learn to associate the visually distinctive appearance with certain standards of quality. If the customers are satisfied with those standards, they will buy products provided with that visually distinctive appearance in preference to others. Once customers have acquired a preference for products provided with a particular visually distinctive appearance, the manufacturers become vulnerable to product counterfeiting.
A counterfeit product consists of a product that is provided with a visually distinctive appearance, or a brand name, confusingly similar to that of a genuine product. Customers seeing the visually distinctive appearance or the familiar brand name provided to the counterfeit product, buy this product in the expectation that they are buying a genuine product.
There are many ways known of providing products with a visually distinctive appearance. In general, the visually distinctive appearance is provided either directly to the product or to an article with which the material is associated such as, for example, a label, wrapper or container. The visually distinctive appearance may be, for example, a distinctive shape or configuration, a distinctive marking, or a trademark. The material of a counterfeit product may be the same as, or different from the material of a genuine product. Often the material of the counterfeit product is the same, but of inferior quality. For instance, it is usually difficult to distinguish a chemical product having a particular chemical formula and made by one manufacturer, from the same chemical, with the same formula, but made by a different manufacturer. This is particularly so if the two manufacturers use the same production process. For this reason, it is not difficult for the unscrupulous to establish the chemical formula of an active ingredient in a composition, and the relative amounts of the various ingredients in the composition, and then pass off his own product as that of another manufacturer.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods for marking products to authenticate ownership thereof. Thus, a counterfeit and a genuine product can be distinguished by the absence of the marker in the former and the presence of the marker in the latter.